Apple was accused of invasion of privacy and computer fraud by two
customers who claim in a lawsuit that the company is secretly recording
movements of iPhone and iPad users. Vikram Ajjampur, an iPhone user in
Florida, and William Devito, a New York iPad customer, sued April 22 in
federal court in Tampa, Florida, seeking a judge’s order barring the
alleged data collection.

Apple collecting a year's worth of location data?

The complaint cited a report by two computer programmers claiming that Apple’s iOS4 operating system is logging latitude-longitude coordinates along with the time a spot is visited. The programmers said Apple devices are collecting about a year’s worth of location data. Apple hasn’t commented on the matter since the report was released.

“We take issue specifically with the notion that Apple is now basically tracking people everywhere they go,” Aaron Mayer, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said today in a telephone interview. “If you are a federal marshal, you have to have a warrant to do this kind of thing, and Apple is doing it without one.”

Meeting with Apple and Google Inc.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan asked to meet with Apple and Google Inc. executives to discuss reports that their products collect information about users’ locations. Madigan wrote to both companies asking what information they store, its purposes and for how long.